Walpurgisnacht
by makoyare
Summary: In a turn of events, a young Harry is taken in by his ancestors and fully develops his powers while discovering what his real role in the war is. "Lily and James saw the signs, they knew what was in store for their son: death. Not his own, but he was surrounded on a daily basis, interacting with those they could not see." Necromancy, Dark!Harry, Eventual Slash-pairing TBA
**So this is just a prologue of sorts to test the waters, it has been a long time since I have written anything in general and I am very rusty and I apologize. I have a couple ideas on what the pairing will be but it will most likely be after a lot of teasing but it is also open to you guys through reviews. A warning, however, it will not be Ginny.**

 **Enjoy**

* * *

The day he was born, Lily stared at her baby boy, hypnotized by his features and in awe of her own son, her child. She made him, Lily made this child with her own body and she knew she would do anything to protect him, to give him the life he deserved.

His angles were high and sharp, his hair as black as a void, and his skin as white as a bone left out in the sun too long. The Black blood from Dorea was strong, his features originating from her high-class ancestral ties; yet, the most striking of his young features was the unnatural and unnerving eyes, as bright as a freshly cast killing curse.

When Harry was one, and already growing into his features. Lily and James saw the signs, they knew what was in store for their son: death. Not his own, but he was surrounded on a daily basis, interacting with those they could not see.

It wasn't until they took a family day trip to the park that they knew for sure.

It was a crisp autumn day, a week or two before Samhain, Harry was propped upon his mother's hip her small hand dwarfed by James' own. The family looked the picture of perfect, from the outside one could not tell there was a prophecy hanging over their heads; nothing could turn their day.

Sitting on a bench the family caught sight of an alley cat, hardened by life on the streets, a large wound gouged into his orange side. Precociously, he wobbled before dropping down into the fallen leaves, and his life faded. The spirit of the cat parted with his fragile body and "Mrow"'d before walking over to the Potters and nudging his head against Lily's leg, unseen by all but one.

Lily looked sadly at the body of the cat and handed Harry in a downy coat to James and crunched through the leaves over to the deceased cat, pulling out her wand.

With a quick flick Lily looked sadly at the results: the cat was dead.

Unbeknownst to the young couple the spirit of the cat jumped up onto the newly vacated half of the bench and brushed against Harry lovingly. The child smiled and pet the cat as he purred, rumbling beneath the boy's hand.

James looked confused as his son interacted with what he could not see and Lily made quick work of patching up the body of the orange tabby cat, the wound stitching together.

From the bench Harry clapped his little hands twice and the cat's spirit ' _pop'_ ed. As Lily moved to stand, a soft 'mrow' caught her attention and her eyes widened as the orange cat sprung up to his feet and trotted to a delighted Harry. Lily soon followed.

"He was dead," she whispered to her husband Lord, watching the cat with her son. "There was no pulse." Her brow furrowed as she thought about the implications of this event, of her son clapping and a dead cat returning to the living.

James also looked thoughtful, pulled into a memory he had long forgotten.

 _The ancestral Potter Manor was lit by a few lamps as Lady Dorea Potter sat on the edge of her only son's bed, her voice slightly above a whisper as she told young James another story of their ancestors, the Peverells, Masters of Death, the first real Necromancers recorded in history._

 _Her black hair was swept high and her storm grey eyes were steeled, hoping to ingrain the knowledge into her son._

 _"_ _Death magic runs through our blood, Jamie. It has not appeared in many years and will need to be coaxed out. Our family needs new blood, we are growing weak and it is your duty as Heir and to-be Lord to bring change." Her back was gracefully arched and her nose upturned slightly at the implication, of what she was teaching her son._

 _It was known that Charlus Potter was a strong lord, the first radically light Potter Lord in many generations. While the family was not originally against the integration of muggleborns, they felt as if there should be a regulation on the age in which they entered the British Wizarding Society as to be able to properly raise them with the necessary culture to not cause civil unrest among their peers._

 _Dorea was a Black, born and raised on the different sides of the political spectrum, but when their fathers arranged a business settlement, Dorea was added to allow for more stability between the families._

 _James was surprised by his mother's change of heart. He had been raised in accordance to pure-blood politics and while he did not hate muggles and their occasional magical offspring, he held no love for them either. To hear his mother give her support of a muggleborn Lady Potter shocked him and he no longer focused on the Peverell blood._

James looked towards his muggleborn wife: new blood.

"Lily, my sweet flower, we must return home. I know what is happening." James grabbed his young son with the cat and Lily and Apparated back to their midcentury cottage, snapping privacy wards from the prying eyes and ears of Dumbledore's implants.

"Necromancy," he breathed. "We are descended…"

"From the Peverells." Lily finished, the air whooshing out of her as she handled pulled Harry close, wanting to protect her only son. Her eyes steeled. As an Unspeakable, Lily worked with ancient magic, studying their properties and their backgrounds. Ironic, she thought, considering what was happening to her family.

"We need to lay low, even more so than we are." James said, smacking his hand with his wand in a threatening manner. "If this is the power the prophecy was referring to then he has to be trained."

Lily nodded until a thought came to her. "By _who_ Jamie? Necromatic arts are illegal and real necromancers have been dead since before the Druids. How can we train him?" Her voice shook under the implications of what they must do.

Dark rituals.

Disturbing the dead.

Breaking the Law.

"We are going to call my ancestors. Plead to them to take him on. The younger he has a mentor, the easier his magics will evolve." James ground out, thinking along the same lines as his wife. "We have to do what's best for our son."

There was no such ritual that either of the two knew about, and Lily was worried; the sooner the ritual was performed, the greater her baby boy's powers could be and maybe he would save them all in time.

Lily bustled forward, careening through the cabinets like a forager for food before drawing out a large bag of salt. The moment it was out of her hands and on the kitchen table she vanished down a set of stairs only to return with her arms full of not just her son but gold bowls.

"We have to think of the materials that we should sacrifice. Grounding and giving is the most important part of this, we need them to be able to stay with Harry." It was common in the Dark Ages that those called from the other realm did not say for long, he pull from the other side too great to resist.

Her mind was spinning at a thousand kilometers a minute, looking for the missing pieces she needed to protect her son, viridian eyes flashing in aggravation as she struggled to think of what was needed.

"Death." James provided, seeing the look in his wife's eyes. "We need to be prepared to die, to give him all our magic and our lives."

"A true sacrifice…the greater the give the greater the gain." Lily mumbled, pushing her hair behind her ear and passing Harry to his father.

Lily was frightened, that was certain; however, she wasn't about to let her own fear get in the way of what had to be done, to train Harry, to end the war. She was running on adrenaline, both her and James, and they had taken no time to think about the consequences, only what could be done.

That night, they performed the ritual.

Their plush area rug was rolled up and moved to the wall of the living room, all of the furniture following. On the deep red wood floor, a ritual circle was cast drawn pristine in white chalk and a second smaller circle was cast within to ground the materials. Within the second circle was a precise pentagram, with each point connecting to a smaller individual circle in the space between the larger one and the smaller, gold bowls were placed within those, waiting for their offerings. Between each bowl were runes that James could not make out, earlier explained by his wife to be runes invoking the veil between realms.

At half to high moon, James and Lily took their places, their naked bodies illuminated by a stray beam of light from the moon. They carefully made work of placing their offerings in their appropriate place: Unicorn blood filled the northern most bowl, James and Lily's own blood filled the two southern most points, and their own magic, shimmering wisps of gold and silver, filled the middle most two points.

As each offering was placed, a bright red light illuminated the respected point, drawing the two into a trance invoked by magic herself.

Surrounded by the middle of the star, within the pentagon, was a bed of bones from the three brothers, atop which lay Harry, naked as the day he was born, viridian eyes curiously observing his parents.

The first chime of midnight came and the couple began their chant in tandem, no longer individual entities but one, combined in their determination and magic to protect their son.

 _Find thy spirit_

 _Tie thy bone_

 _Guide thy blood_

 _Hunt thy home_

 _Call thy brother_

 _Call thy magic_

 _Tie mine world_

 _Stay mine realm_

 _Magick Old Magick May_

 _Let Mother Magick guide thy way_

 _Mortal realm seen by one_

 _Use thy hand_

 _Guide thy new son_

 _Use mine life_

 _Live mine life_

The last chime of midnight overlapped with the last of their chant and the air crackled with static and magic, the bones rattled, shaking the baby Harry. In a blast of white light, three bodies ascended from the bones, tall and thin, and Harry giggled.

The blast threw James and Lily back, their magic drained.

* * *

Antioch looked around the modest cottage, picking up the babe and turning to face his brothers. It was strange to by tangible again, he thought, centuries in the afterlife had altered his perception of his senses and holding this babe was almost surreal to him.

The boy blinked up at him, his eyes an intense viridian, reminding Antioch of his own.

"It would be prudent to check the parents," Antioch trailed towards his brothers, Cadmus's sickly red eyes widened before shuffling over and Ignotus rolled his own sallow yellow while following the middle brother.

They all had heard the ritual invoked and knew their task: to raise their heir. The child was now the son of each of them, their magic now tied to the insurance of his survival. It was odd, Antioch thought, instinctively bouncing the child.

He had been killed before he could raise a family of his own, to pass down the great Peverell Lordship, and now with this child, he could enter the political arena once more and return he Peverell house to their proper place above he common population.

"Brother," Cadmus called out, wary of disturbing their new addition. "They have both passed, their magic drained." His hands found the hem of his sleeves and twisted, just as he did centuries past.

Cadmus was always the more subdued of the brothers, always following Antioch's lead as the oldest, and always afraid of speaking out of turn, a reminder from their past days being reared by their Governess who favored a wand in her right and a pan in her left.

"Interesting they should be dead and we alive," Ignotus hummed, his analytical mind sweeping through rituals of intent and the outcomes. "Can you tell me Cadmus, what year we have found ourselves in?"

Their speech patterns had been altered from their old dialect and thrust into those of this new time, the brothers noticed the more they spoke. Antioch puffed with pride for his younger brother's mind, they both had figured out what their new circumstances were but it was left to Cadmus to walk through the process.

All three of the brothers were prodigies in their own right, all masters of multiple fields yet none the same. Antioch was the most skilled in offensive magic, magic of the mind, and transfiguration, Cadmus followed armed heavily with offensive magic, Herbology, and Potions, followed by Ignotus who heavily favored his fields of Charms and Healing.

All together they excelled in Necromancy. Collected, the brothers were a dueling powerhouse, each supreme on their own; however, together the Peverell's were unbeatable, being able to duel as a single entity.

Instantly, Cadmus replied.

"1981."

Antioch smirked.

Ignotus' eyes gleamed.

The three of them had gained the memories of the deceased Potters, making them able to navigate this future world.

Their youngest brother stepped toward their child, gathering him from Antioch's arms and tucked him into the crook of his arm, swathed by the excess fabric. Once settled, their heir yawned before cooing and falling asleep.

Antioch chuckled as his brother became enthralled and turned towards the Potters. With a wide sweeping motion, the room was cleared of all evidence of a ritual, the furniture pushed back to their proper place and the circle dispelled, and the Potter's bodies raised into the air.

"We are leaving."

Antioch lead the way from the small cottage, followed by Ignotus with their child, with Cadmus trailing behind, ensuring the Potter's bodies followed. The procession made their way to Godric's Hallow cemetery and Ignotus raised his unoccupied arm to create a marble tomb for the couple to be laid to rest for eternity.

With the bodies situated, each brother pressed close around the sleeping babe and were gone without so much as a _crack._


End file.
